I’ve buried the concept for this post right down in the comments section of the post below, which was silly. If you don’t fancy exhuming it, here it is again. It’s a proposed book recommendation post. You’re welcome to start one on your own blogs too.

The meme is of course the sign of a dead blog, so I don’t know what my attempt to start one says about mine. Nevertheless, let’s have a crack at it.

Here’s how it works: if you want me to recommend you a book, based solely on my limited knowledge of you as a blogger, then please comment below. Once I have a few names – or once I realise it’s an unworkably odd idea and abandon it, whichever is sooner – I’ll put up a new post containing one recommendation for each volunteer.

If you want to participate in this ‘project’ – which seems a laughably lofty word for a coffee-break diversion I just invented on the spur of the moment – then feel free to do the same. Call for volunteers and then recommend them something. If you tell me you’re doing it, I’ll drop in for my 1-book prescription from Doctor You too.

We can then have the pleasure of recommending each other one title to sit in our Amazon wishlists for 6 months before being deleted. What could be more fun?

The only rule is that the recommender must genuinely think the person will enjoy the book. No joke recommendations, e.g. “A Compendium of Mental Illness” for people who are “just kerrr-azy, like totally WACKO”.

Make sense? OK. Then let’s begin.

Want a personal book recommendation in my forthcoming post? Let me know below. Want to recommend other people books? Post a similar request on your blog. Bingo!

I don’t have any literary taste to speak of, so I am well up for someone suggesting something.

I have been ploughing through “The Miracle Of Castel Di Sangro” for about three weeks (an American writes a book about Italian football. Yes, its as annoying and cringeworthy as you could possibly imagine it would be). I am only persisting as I am interested in the outcome of the season, not because I want to read any more nonsense from a man who knows as much about football as my one year old daughter’s cuddly Piglet.

I will categorically buy/borrow and read your suggestion. Although bear in mind that last book I bought was called “That’s Not my Fairy – a Touch and Feel Story”.

Here in the US, everyone is mad for Dan Brown and the Da Vinci Code. Now, I’ve read it, and it’s an amusing page-turner.
But it really is a “poor man’s Foucault’s Pendulum.”
So if you are considering reading The Da Vinci Code, pick up something by Umberto Eco instead.
Try Baudolino; it’s one of Eco’s funniest pieces of fiction.

Yes, please. I need something to cap my book mountain, as the unread books at the bottom require perilous digging to find.

What a bloody good idea to get brain juices flowing all around.

I’m currently reading a lot of Paul Theroux (in tandem – where is he? Veitnam or Costa Rica!? Gaaa!) and quite enjoy his love of the new and general disdain for those he meets in his travels.

Have you read ‘The Sewing Circles of Herat’ by Christina Lamb? I’d like to form words about the book, but might begin to weep with joy and admiration for the writer and anger at the invaders of Afghanistan…

Fox, feel free to recommend a book for me. I have one for you. “Queen of the Damned” (Anne Rice). If you get past the vampire business, it gives a riveting theory on all religions and their origins during the “tale of the twins” part.

I’m loving all these recommendations. Ib, yours is freakishly apt as it’s already in my wishlist. I’ve put all the other recommendations in there too. They all appeal. Hope you like all yours, which will appear tomorrow.